


Cough Medicine for the Eternally Young

by nagi_schwarz



Category: BBC Merlin
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:58:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6157336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outsider POV, repost of <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/kinkme_merlin/7746.html?thread=5198146#t5198146">this</a> kinkme prompt:<br/>Arthur/Merlin, <a href="http://notalwaysright.com/elixirs-of-everlasting-life-are-on-aisle-5/3741;">http://notalwaysright.com/elixirs-of-everlasting-life-are-on-aisle-5/3741;</a> includes a random non-pairing OMC; reincarnation/future-fic vibe<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cough Medicine for the Eternally Young

Tom perked up when he saw a customer trundling toward his check-out lane with a trolley loaded with groceries. No one had been by for the past two hours, and he could only rearrange the chocolate bars so many times.

"Good evening," Tom said, and smiled cautiously. "Find everything all right?"

"Yes, thank you," the customer said. He was tall and strong-looking, blond, the sort of bloke who was probably captain of the football team and head boy at some fancy public boarding school, and Tom was slightly intimidated.

The man loaded his groceries onto the conveyor belt with easy efficiency. A few moments later, another man - younger, a touch taller, paler, with dark hair - shuffled up behind him. He was sniffling into a crumpled kleenex and clutching a bottle of cough medicine.

"Here," the other man said, voice muffled from a stuffy nose, "we need this."

The blond man took the bottle and looked at it, sighed. " _Merlin_. How can you _possibly_ be ill?"

"Perhaps," Merlin said, a touch peevishly, "if I'd eaten more vegetables growing up instead of having them thrown at me I'd have a better immune system."

"Oh please - don't modern studies show that children who are too clean have terrible immune systems? I'm sure you were muddy all the time as a child, so your immune system should be strong," the blond man said. His tone was matter-of-fact, but inwardly Tom bristled at the man's easy arrogance.

Merlin glared over the top of his scarf. "Thank you, _sire_." The sarcasm at the honorific was heavy.

The blond man wasn't offended, however, he just threw his head back and laughed. "You're welcome. We'll buy your cough medicine, then. Next time don't stay out so late in the cold rain, hm?"

" _Stay out in the cold_ \-- is _that_ what you call me _saving your life?_ " Merlin squawked.

The blond man set the bottle on the conveyor belt. "Relax. I'm grateful, and you know it."

"You'd better be," Merlin grumbled.

Tom finished ringing up the last of the groceries. He passed the bottle of cough medicine over the scanner, and a warning popped up. _Age verification?_

Tom said, “Sir, I need to verify your date of birth.”

The blond man turned to him, a small frown of irritation furrowing his brow. “Why?”

Tom took a deep breath. He was just doing his job, this wasn't the schoolyard, and he had no reason to feel like a bug on the bottom of someone's shoe. He took another deep breath.

Huh.

The mantra his therapist had recommended worked, for the most part.

“You’re trying to buy medicine and I just need your date of birth to confirm you are over the age of 18.” Tom was pleased when he sounded confident and authoritative.

“Oh." The blond man shrugged easily. "April 20th, 1420.”

Tom went to key in the numbers, then paused, blinked. He lifted his head, sure to catch the blond man smirking at him, but he was straightening Merlin's scarf with a sigh and an air like an exasperated mother.

“Sir, I really need your actual birth date to continue,” Tom said.

The blond man cast Tom a sidelong glance. “4-20-1420. Put it in.”

Tom entered the date slowly, cringing, waiting for red warning lights to flare up and the manager to come tearing out of the back office to lay into him for breaking the computers. But then words popped up on the screen: _date accepted_. Tom looked up at the blond man in disbelief.

Surprisingly, the blond man's smile was gentle instead of mocking. “Told you.”

Tom could only finish ringing up the purchases in a daze. The blond man attempted to pay with a handful of bills and coins Tom had never seen before, which prompted Merlin to intervene with a huffy _Sire_ and count out the proper change.

The blond man scooped up the series of grocery bags with an easy strength that Tom was envious of and waited while Merlin collected his change.

Merlin leaned in and said, voice low and conspiratorial, "The 1420 is a misprint. Arthur was really born in 483. He thinks a thousand-odd years off his age makes a difference."

Tom blinked. These people were crazier than he was. "Of course," he said faintly.

"Merlin," Arthur called imperiously from near the doors. "We don't _actually_ have eternity, and Excalibur isn't going to get itself out of the lake, now is it?"

Merlin rolled his eyes. "Duty calls. Three days from now, when the sky explodes, you might want to hide, by the way." He fluttered a hand in farewell and trotted toward the door. "Yes, well, it wouldn't be in a lake if _someone_ was aware enough to know when the palace physician was drugging him," he said to Arthur.

Tom could only watch them go, dazed.

"Here," Arthur said, and shifted half of the groceries into Merlin's arms. "Help."

"I'm not your servant anymore," Merlin protested.

"I know," Arthur said, voice softer. "But if I'm carrying all of these, I can't do this." And he reached out, grasped Merlin's hand in his.

Tom couldn't tell if Merlin was blushing or just flushed from fever.

"Come on," Arthur said. "I can't do this without you by my side."

Merlin smiled, and the sweetness of it made something in Tom's chest ache. He watched them walk out to the carpark, and for one moment they were silhouetted by the fading sunlight, backlit in a last splash of gold before evening settled over the world.

Three days later, when the sky exploded, a knight in shining armor appeared, and he had a wizard by his side.  


**Author's Note:**

> http://www.fanfics.me/index.php?section=3&id=87629
> 
> https://ficbook.net/readfic/4149205
> 
> Russian translations by ThisMittenIsSmitten :)


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